I don't want to fool people. If I wanted to do that, I would be working with virtual reality. I want to operate on the other level, the other end of the illusion spectrum. I want to create the worst possible illusions so it doesn't really fool people, but instead give people a measure of their own belief. It makes them aware of how much they need to be fooled in order to understand the world around them.
Vik MunizMy first reaction to finding Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty in a book was, Wow, what a great photograph! I could not believe that someone had gone to so much trouble just to end up with a picture.
Vik MunizI'm not creating art that starts with politics or starts with ethics. I feel I am a conceptual artist because my art is more concerned with epistemology than ethics or politics or even aesthetics.
Vik MunizI think that the development of any culture has something to do with the way people deal with the concept of illusion. The fact that the sound of my voice and the way I modulate it creates pictures in your head... in order for us to accumulate knowledge, we have to create symbolic exchanges that let ourselves be fooled temporarily by something that's not there - by a substitute for reality. When you talk about representation, you're talking about language.
Vik MunizOnly in the 20th century, artists started taking the study of perception in a more humane way. They were thinking about the eye as being an instrument, the whole body as being a visual instrument. That sort of gave way a little bit with Cartesianยญ - the "Cogito ergo sum" argument. It's not, "I think therefore I exist." It's, "I feel therefore I think therefore I exist."
Vik MunizEvery time you show something to somebody they're going in one direction, when they see that thing you did they're going to go off track - maybe towards a direction that you think is more important. They'll be more discerning, they'll probably see things a little bit more profoundly, they'll spend more time trying to understand what's in front of them.
Vik Muniz